


survive to thrive.

by eoghainy



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 21:22:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16689085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eoghainy/pseuds/eoghainy
Summary: a series of telltale's twdg oneshots. x





	survive to thrive.

**Author's Note:**

> a series of telltale's twdg oneshots. x

In this moment, with the silence pressing in on all sides and the bone-saw clutched in his death grip, Lee missed her terribly.

Not his wife, no. He hadn’t missed her from the second he was convicted and carted off to jail. He missed _her_. Carley. The very woman who had made him feel more in just a few months than in his entire six years of being married. Though they had gotten off to a rocky start, through the months spent together he had grown closer to her, closer than ‘just friends’. 

When Lee chose to save her first over Doug, it hadn’t been his intention to fall for her. In fact, it hadn’t been his intention to fall for anyone at _all_. That was the last thing anyone wanted in an apocalypse. He hadn’t even wanted a child to drag along, though he wouldn’t take any of what he had done for Clementine in order to protect her back. Like everything, though, there were some things he’d like to take back, if he was going to be thinking about it in his last hours.

What he wanted to take back was what happened with Lilly, with Carley. If he hadn’t been so preoccupied with keeping the peace at the motor inn, he could have helped Lilly. Or at least, tried to soothe her paranoia _before_ she had gotten so bad. Perhaps that would have saved Carley from getting shot, from dying right in front of him, Kenny, Ben and Clementine. God, how he wanted to take that moment back and redo it. How he dreamed of how it could have been different.

_“Are you doing okay? About Carley, I mean. I know you were . . . fond of her.”_

Katjaa’s soothing and lilted voice rang in his head. The way she had looked at him, her doe-like amber eyes crinkled around the corners and her mouth pressed into a concerned line, Lee had felt something within him _pull_. A sharp strain upon his heartstrings, a twisting within his gut, and he was replaying the moment in which the gun went off and Carley hit the ground with such a heavy thud that Lee wondered if he would ever forget it. 

_“Oh, where did yesterday go?”_

Leaning against the metal slab and still holding the saw, Lee could feel the gentleness of her lips pressing against his scruffy cheek, and then again against his lips. So soft, so fleeting, so incredibly quick that he thought he had imagined it until her hand wrapped around his shirt and she waited for him to make the next move. With Carley, it was like they were always playing a game, always relying upon the other to make the first move.

This time, Lee wasn’t letting her slip through his fingers like sand. He had kissed her, firm yet chaste and before it could go anywhere Duck had been interrupting them to tell Lee that he had found a clue. He had been dragged away from the tempting allure of Carley’s mouth and her warm gaze, promising to return, but that promise had never been fulfilled for a few hours later she was lying dead on the ground and far out of his reach. 

In a way, he regrets his spurt of anger that had led to them leaving Lilly behind. He had no idea what would have happened if they had let her come with him, though he supposed that she wouldn’t have stayed with them for much longer. Despite being a callous woman, she did feel remorse, and Lee had seen that upon her face in the last few moments that they had all spent together. He wished that he could have gotten an apology out of her for what she had done, but all of that was way too late.

Far too late. 

As the saw begins to dig into his flesh, Lee desperately wishes that he had Carley here beside him. Though he wasn’t one to rely on anyone else’s judgement, he _did_ trust her, which was why he had confided in the entire group about his past. He didn’t know what she would say about this, about cutting off his own arm to prevent the spread of infection, truly he didn’t know (wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to know), but he still sawed away at the sinewy muscles and tendons anyway, _needing_ to survive this.

Lee missed her. He wished that they had had an actual chance at to be something more, to share in the comforts of being survivors and to enjoy being with each other, but fate had not given them that chance. Her name was on his tongue as he sawed through bone, and all the way through to the other side.


End file.
